1. Can you explain this diagram using what we’ve looked at so far?
Situation
Response
Consequence
Strain
Subculture
Functionalism, strain AND subcultural theory rolled into one!
Crime

2. Cloward & Ohlin They wrote Delinquency & Opportunity, (1961).
Cloward and Ohlin (1960) said that Merton had failed to appreciate that there was a parallel opportunity structure to the legal one: the illegitimate opportunity structure.
In this illegitimate opportunity structure a regular criminal career is available, with recognised means of obtaining the society’s goals.
KEY CONCEPT: legitimate opportunity structure; illegitimate opportunity structure; criminal subcultures; conflict subcultures; retreatist subcultures; utilitarian crime; non-utilitarian crime.

3. SUMMARY OF STUDY:
They focused on how peoples’ opportunities to be deviant are also different: not everyone gets the same chances to be crooks; some have better opportunities to enter into a criminal career, particularly if they have access to a criminal subculture.
Can you take my son under your wing? I want him to know everything there is to know about protection racketeering.

4. Cloward and Ohlin (1960)
Like Robert Merton they explain working-class crime in terms of goals and means.
But they disagree with Merton that delinquents share the same values/goals as the rest of society.
BUT
Cloward and Ohlin
see lower working-class
delinquents as sharing
their own deviant
subcultural values.
So they develop an illegitimate career structure
Because of ‘blocked opportunities’ they cannot get on legitimately

5. Cloward and Ohlin (Continued)
Cloward and Ohlin identified 3 types of delinquent subculture:
Criminal
Subculture
Conflict
Violent
Subculture
Retreatist
(drug)
Subculture

6. Three possible adaptations or subcultures
Criminal – A strong local criminal subculture, where young criminals can work their way up the criminal ladder.
Conflict – No local criminal subculture. Instead, there are violent clashes between rival gangs.
Retreatist – A more individual response, in which the individual has no opportunity to engage in either of the other two subcultures and retreat in to alcoholism.

7. Critique of Cloward and Ohlin
Not everyone gets sucked into
Illegitimate career structure
Women have
more blocked
opportunities
than men
Fails to consider
white-collar crime
Ignores the wider power structure and those who enforce laws
this was a theoretical study that combined the ideas of both Merton and Cohen.
The idea of retreatist subcultures is a simplistic explanation of drug abuse which is actually really common among middle class people.

8. Walter B Miller
He wrote delinquent boys
Miller does not see deviant behaviour occurring due to the inability of the lower class groups to achieve success. Instead, he explains crime in terms of the existence of a distinctive lower class subculture – it’s not a reaction to poverty; it’s a way of life.
He believes that this lower class group has for centuries possessed their own culture and traditions which are totally different from those in the higher classes. This thus suggests that this lower class culture has been passed on not by one generation but for much longer than this.
KEY CONCEPT: lower class subculture; focal concerns; toughness; smartness; excitement; fate; trouble; peer status.

9. Walter B. Miller (1962)
Focal
concerns
Trouble
Toughness
Excitement
Smartness
Fatalism
Autonomy
Miller saw the lower working-class socialised into deviant subcultural values he called ‘focal concerns’
03/06/201803/06/2018

10. I’ll teach my kids to fight, have a laugh and be streetwise.
What are the Focal Concerns of this working class subculture?
1. Toughness: this involves a concern for masculinity and finds expression in courage in the face of physical threat and a rejection of timidity and weakness.
I’ve taught my lad to duck and dive, laugh at the police and drink White Lightening in parks.
I’ll teach my kids to fight, have a laugh and be streetwise.

11. 2. Smartness: this involves the ‘capacity to outfox, outwit, dupe, take others. Groups that use these techniques, include the hustler, conman, and the cardsharp, the pimp and pickpocket and petty thief.
3. Excitement: Involves the search for ‘thrills’, for emotional stimulus. In
practice it is sought in gambling, sexual adventures and booze, which can be obtained by a traditional night out on the town.

12. 6. Autonomy- It’s important not to be pushed around by others
4. Fate: They believe that little can be done about their lives – and what will be will be; they have no power to change anything.
I’ll prob’ly be in prison in a couple of years.
Life’s pretty crap, so I’ve nothing to loose.
There’s nowt to do except play with my own dribble.
5. Trouble: young working class males accept their lives will involve violence, and they will not run away from fights.
6. Autonomy- It’s important not to be pushed around by others

13. We walk the same, dress the same and live life the same...
Miller notes that two factors tend to emphasise and exaggerate the focal concerns of the lower class subculture.
A peer group that demands close conformity to group norms
2. Youngsters in terms of the peer status and norms achieve status.
It’s my mission to make people scared of me. It’s the only way I’ll gain respect seeing as I’ll never get power or status in a job.
We walk the same, dress the same and live life the same...

14. SCY6 Crime & Deviance: Structural/subcultural theories
David Matza
He wrote delinquency & drift.
KEY CONCEPT: juvenile delinquency; subterranean values; techniques of neutralization; mood of humanism; mood of fatalism;

15. Do we agree with Matza’s theory so far? Has he got a point?
He attacks some of the assumptions on which sub-cultural and structural theories are based, and gives his own explanation claiming that delinquents are similar to everyone else in their values and voice similar feelings of outrage about crime in general as everyone else
The first point that Matza made is that we all hold two levels of values.
Conventional Values, roles such as father, occupation
2. Subterranean Values of sexuality, greed and aggressiveness. We all hold and do them. Delinquents are simply more likely to act on them
Do we agree with Matza’s theory so far? Has he got a point?

16. Far from being deviant this group are
Far from being deviant this group are...casually, intermittently, and transiently immersed in a pattern of illegal activity to put it into Matza’s words. They drift into deviant activities. In other words, there is a lot of spontaneity and impulsiveness in deviant actions.
Techniques of Neutralisation
If delinquents are as much committed to conventional values as anyone else and, furthermore, express condemnation of crimes similar to the ones they themselves commit, why do they commit them at all?
Matza suggests that delinquents justify their own crimes as exceptions to the rule. ‘Yes, what I did was wrong, but...’
They are thus able to convince themselves that the law does not apply
to them on this particular occasion.
We’re not at school cos it’s boring and it won’t do us any good. We know it’s wrong and that, but we don’t need to go.

17. Techniques of Neutralization:
Denial of responsibility for the deviant act – the delinquents may remove responsibility from themselves by blaming their parents or the area in which they live.
Denial of injury – resulting from the act – the delinquents may argue that joy-riding does not harm anyone, it is just a bit of mischief and that they were borrowing the car.
Denial of that the act was basically wrong – an assault on a homosexual (‘Queer Bashing’ was ubiquitous in the 1980s) or attack on an expensive shop seen as ‘rough justice’.
Condemnation of those who make the rules – the police may be seen as corrupt or teachers as unjust hypocrits.
Appeal to higher loyalties - the delinquents may argue that they broke the law not out of self interest but to help family or friends.

18. He deserved a slap, that’s what happens when you’re queer.
Chill, the bloke got his car back No harm done.
Mum didn’t get our giro this week, so I got us some beers in. Didn’t actually pay for ‘em, mind.
The bizzies are constantly picking on me so of course I chucked a brick at their van.
I smashed up the phone box because my mum’s giving me a hard time.

19. SCY6 Crime & Deviance: Structural/subcultural theories
Charles Murray
He wrote underclass
KEY CONCEPT: underclass; welfare dependency;
Think Jeremy Kyle guests

20. He does not accept the idea that the underclass share the same morals and values as the rest of mainstream society.
When we grow up, we want good jobs and nice houses.
When we grow up, we want to go on the dole and rob your houses.

21. SUMMARY OF STUDY:
Murray argues that crime is a cultural phenomenon – among particular groups that share deviant norms and values.
He focuses on the underclass; a group in society that are at the bottom of the socio-economic structure as they do not and cannot participate in mainstream cultural activities such as education and / or employment and are instead, reliant upon the welfare state.
Murray sees the underclass as responsible for a high proportion of crime and explains their criminality in terms of their rejection of mainstream norms and values.